New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1887-11-02
plain TAX Upon a Plain Topic.

With all our modern progressive
ideas on the culture and training OF
children, one duty seem to be to- q
great degree overlooked. namely
that OF answering children's questions
regarding the origin Of their existence.
There IS the advent of a little stranger
in your home, and as your wondering
child OF a dozen years perhaps. asks
you the old, old question, you no
doubt answer her as your mother an
swered you, and as her mother re-
piled to the same question. But can
you-living in these days, dare you
looking into her earnest truthful lace
tell her what you know, and what
she will soon know is false? From
whose lips do you wish her to hear OF
such sacred things? Who else SO de-
voutly as you, can enter that :'holyof
holes" with your child? What a tie
to bind her to you in tender conf
dence have you lost! But you let her
GO from you unfinished and thought
full. and if you have never done SO be-
fore, you have now made a little wall
separation between yourself and her,
and when her curiosity is again ex-
cited, she will appeal to some one else
some other child perhaps, as curl
Gus as herself, possibly not as inno-
cent, and heart that should have re-
manned as pure as the morning. is con-
taminated with vain imaginations,
until the eyes that once looked into
yours for truthful answer, would
quail before you, could you read the
thoughts OF guilty heart?
But" mother once said to me,
call the bloom and innocence of her
girlheod would be gone.'
| assure you it may be gone past
your recall, though you seek it tear
nestly and with tears" unless you at
tend to this duty yourself. You do
not know what a bond of sympathy
such q course will esta blish between
yourself and your child, and all
through her life, the memory Of your
words will have sweet, restraining
influence, the value of which will be
untold and unreasonable 1t will be
easier than you think; q few words az
subject SO tender and sacred must
not be spoken OF to others. and that
when any such question troubles her
again, she must come to you only for
the truth which you will tell her. Thus,
gradually, hermind at rest on the sub
ject it will be absorbed as beautifully
as any other knowledge. and depend
upon it, child thus reared will never
impart nor receive the ordinary school
girl information. And If such instruc-
ton should beglven your daughters, it
is eealally important that in the safe
Shelter of the home nest, under your
own roof tree, your boys should re-
ceive the same, from the lips which
laid the first benediction upon their
heads It will be chrism OF love- a
baptism Of purity, and safeguard
against temptation for lack of which,
so many OF our youth wander into
ways which lead down to DEATH"
Give your children their lesson in
physiology. Tell them OF the wonder
full organs OF reproduction, and how
through all vegetable and animal life
the law is the same; and as your own
heaet is pure, dear mother, so will be
your teaching. And though the human
heart is depraved by nature, there is
enough of the divine ''seed remaining"
to prevent child taught at it's moth
er's knee from making any depraved
use OF such knowledge. Rather it will
be one of the steps which shall lead
him from nature up to natures
God," and shall teach him to say de-
vontly, "How wonderful are thy
works, O, God" Ellen Knight
Bradford, in Good Housekeeping.